Posted
by
Soulskillon Tuesday June 12, 2012 @10:11PM
from the boombox-and-duct-tape-no-longer-cut-it dept.

alexbgreat writes "What do you think is the best set of head-mounted loudspeakers for the money, with a cost of less than $50? Here are some featuresthat would be stupendous to have (in descending order of importance): noise isolation (not cancellation), flat/near flat response (I need to be able to hear bass, but I don't need my eardrums blown out), long-term comfort (earbuds usually hurt for me), and durability. Over-ear is preferred to anything on- or in-ear. Boom mics are permissible, as I may well use it as a broadcast intercom headset."
If you have experience using headphones from different price ranges, feel free to share that as well.

Downside: almost transparent to sound. People can hear what you're listening to and the isolation you get is next to none. Still, audio quality is great for the price, they're light and very comfortable.

For around $140 or less, the Grado SR80i's are pretty damn hard to beat. No isolation also (you can't really have good sound with closed headphones - the best ones with flattest response tend to be open). Spending anymore money on headphones is silly. It's strange, as Grado is "audiophile" but $140 makes it amongst the cheapest available. Hell, they're cheaper than the crap called Beats. The only downside is they can be hard to get (only sold at very high end audio stores - and probably the cheapest thing those stores sell).

Of course, for less money... Koss Porta Pros (not Sporta). Darned thing can be had for under $50 and for a "cheap" brand, surprisingly good. In fact, they've re-released them with slight modifications. Not sure if they're still as good, but I think you can find the old version new still. 80's looks, open design again, but for a set of headphones that are cheap, stunning.

There is also other considerations for closed vs open vs active noise cancellationClosed (including in ears)Pros:- reduce background noise by actually blocking the air from the outside reaching into the cup. Ideal for listening to delicate sounds with treble and mid range in relatively noisier environments.- Good bass response

Cons:- due to closed nature, strong bass can "reverb" around the cup, as the closed nature does not allow excess pressure to "escape", causing treble to be lost, or the sound becoming distorted. At higher volumes/bass levels, the pressures induced can cause damage to the hearing system, and in some people can affect their ability to balance (they feel dizzy).- loss of outside sound

Open backed:Pros:- "natural" sound as air is free to escape- good dynamic range- safer for activities where you need to hear outside sounds.- perfect for quiet environments

Cons- poor for loud environments- definition is lost in loud environments.

Active noise cancelling:ANC is theoretically the best solution, as it allows an opened headphone to still be able to isolate external sounds.However, this is very much an exact science, where electirics "add" a negative phased waveform of the outside noise at the same time and volume as its passing into the ear.

Unfortunately this requires:- High quality microphones placed as close to the ear as possible to record the outside sounds, as if your ear is picking up the sounds with as little distortion as possible, in order to create an accurate "negative sound". IT is at the moment hard to create such a "perfect" microphone, let alone one small enough to fit on the earbuds as close to the ear.

- High quality, and fast electronics to process the incoming sound wave, invert it's phase, then mix into the music fast enough for the negative sound to reach the ear drum at the same time as the outside noise. If the sound is not exactly on the same "phase" it can reduce the effectiveness the the noise cancellation, and also induce a high pitched hiss. Its relatively easy to cancel out low pitched (up to 200hz) compared to higher pitched sounds (greater than 10,000 hz), hence why current technology only really manages to filter out low constant rumbles rather than high pitched sounds, and even voices.

- Volume matching also needs to be as close as possible. Too low, and the external noise is not negated sufficiently. too high and also the noise will not only be canceled, but reinserted in the opposite phase. In addition, if there the sound is delayed, and the volume is high, it creates horrible sounding artifacts.

- The headphones themselves need to re-produce the negative sounds well enough to cancel the noise.- Batteries/power source!

In the case of ANC, it is a case of the more you pay, usually the better the quality. Those cheap no brand phones are likely to be appalling. Even the best are only good at reducing low rumbling noise (aircraft engines, etc) rather than general noise (traffic, people etc).

You'd better be right. I just bought 3 pairs of different headphones. Great prices. I am hoping the fabric covered wires indicates that they aren't the cheapest crap ever made. I bought some headphones on ebay a while back and it was listening to everything through a wet sock.

I absolutely love Monoprice's earbuds. I often lose or break mine, so I like cheap ones I can easily replace. I'm used to pretty crappy quality, but when I realized Monoprice sold some, I was pleasantly surprised at how nice they were. (Though, they're still $5 earbuds, don't go expecting some crazy sound quality.)

I'm very happy with my AKG K240 studio headphones. They are also close to $99 retail. But worth every penny. The audio cable is detachable as well so if years down the road you get a short, you can easily replace the cable for about $15. If I'm just at home, nothing beats a pair of big ass headphones.

The 240Ms looks a lot like the Realistic-branded cans that I bought in the early 90s, with a single active and six passive diaphragms. I loved those cans and still do, but I can't wear them now for any length of time because of physical pain to my ears.

Just something to consider... I know what you're saying, but "good" of course has different meaning for different applications. I've never heard Bose headphones, but I have heard other Bose audio, and while it sounds very nice, for what is popular today in what people want to hear, in my experience, Bose can almost never actually be considered having fidelity, that is, faithful to the actual audio that is being amplified... because I have discovered they are always incredibly bass heavy. In a studio, this might be fine for cans for a drummer... if an expensive option. For purely enjoying music, they are pleasant I have little doubt, Bose does some pretty incredible things. But you're hearing more than the artists intended, FWIW. I'm no Bose expert, haven't listened to any of their headphones, but I would expect if you tried to mix music with them, all your music would end up sounding weak in the low end... because you're mixing with a heavy bass handycap. If the music you listen to is traditionally bass heavy anyway, I wouldn't expect Bose to be considered good for that application, unless you just really love low end and don't mind that you're hearing more of the headphones and less of the music.

Again, I am no expect, but I would consider the best headphones those that faithfully reproduce music flatly, in all its gory sonic imperfection, and not try to boost any frequencies because the sound of it happens to be popular right now.

I like Bose radios for their compactness... big sound, small box... but I have no delusion as to whether the audio coming out of it is actually really what I am listening to... if that makes any sense (how much is the artist, how much is Bose?). Most people would hate the way studio monitors sound, but if Bose made such a thing in a compact box that didn't boost frequencies and faithfully reproduced the signal no matter what it was, I'd be all over it.

I know what you mean about the exaggerated bass, that's is exactly what I experienced with their speakers in their show room. However, I purchased their original noise cancelling head phones ($300) when they first came out because my cubical was immediately below the heating and air conditioning system. The head phones DID NOT exhibit the same bass boost that their speakers did and the noise cancelling ability was outstanding. I've tried other noise cancelling head phones just as a point of comparison and none did as good a job. The tonal range seemed to be evenly distributed and the ability to reproduce sounds accurately was good as near as I can tell. Also, Bose will (or at least did) give you a $100 credit if you brought in an old pair for replacement. Seems like an absolute necessity if you work in a cubical environment.

They're about 12 bucks on Amazon (more if you want the iPhone model), but they're cheap, comfortable and pretty durable. Sound is fine, but I'm no audiophile so I can't really tell the difference between earbud sound quality when I'm listening to MP3s.

I know they get a lot of greif around here, but their earbuds have interchangeable tips to size them for your ear canal (S/M/L included) and they are $100. I use mine at work and for earbuds they are amazing (fidelity wise), and comfort is very good. I have a set of the $300 over ear QC15 (to replace my old QC1's) and I like them fine, but they are not nearly as good a bang for the buck as the earbuds.When I am doing actual audio/video work I have an ancient set of JBLs that I wear for the detail work and

They sound good to me, but I'm not a serious audiophile, I just use them to cover up background office noise. I think the sound is comparable to the $80 Sennheiser's I use at home. (which, a friend tells me are completely unbearable compared to his $500 Sennheiser HD650's, so I refuse to listen to music through his headphones, 'lest some of his "golden ears" rub off and I find myself needing more expensive gear)

so I refuse to listen to music through his headphones, 'lest some of his "golden ears" rub off and I find myself needing more expensive gear)

I made the mistake of shelling out a hundred bucks for a new pair of Shure headphones recently and now half my music is unlistenable.And I've also discovered that my laptop's headphone jack produces a steady hiss when it's powered on.

You should be able to get a pair of sennheisers [sennheiserusa.com] that fit around your ear.It's could be worth paying extra at that price range and what ever is on special that closed and around the ear would work.I have the 280s and they are pretty good for isolation.

Wearing a pair of Sennheiser 280's right now. I've had them for a few years, best money I've ever spent. They're durable and block out a fair bit of office noise. They sound great, too, they're a nice upgrade from the crappy $20 pairs you can find everywhere else. Perfect office headphone, also use them as monitors for my synthesizer.

I used primarily the HD-580 for about seven years, until I switched to Stax electrostatic headphones (Omega 3, that cost about $5000). The 580 were around $250 when I bought them new on eBay and one could probably find them now for $200. Over this time period I auditioned several dozen headphones (I don't have speakers as I move frequently) and in the under $250 range there's nothing that compares. It's a sort of a sweet spot. Anything above that price point is an incremental improvement; most things below are a significant degradation. Even the $5K Stax are not that greatly better (but hey, felt good to buy myself a little present, and it was an excuse to build a high voltage hybrid solid state/tube headphone amp instead of plunking another $5K after one... http://gilmore.chem.northwestern.edu/bluehawaii_moda1.png [northwestern.edu] )

They're unbiased enough to say when a $40 pair is better than $100 pair that they sell.

I have no experience from HeadRoom ( I am sure they are good if you recommend them).
But I did use to work in an electronics store as a teenager, and I just want to say that it is quite possible for the reseller to have better margins on a $40 pair than the $100. Especially when the cheaper product isn't all that well known and the more expensive one is. So that is not really a foolproof sign that they are unbiased.

Funny, along the same path, I ripped a pair sennheisers apart and installed them in a headpiece to practice shooting firearms or operating heavy and and noisy machinery. They are basically the same. Perfect noise isolation. I use them to record drums so I can't hear the drums directly, only the feedback from the headphones...

I know Jude personally (the guy that runs the site), and I can tell you that threads get deleted if they criticize any of the products of companies sponsoring the site. And there's quite a few of those.
It's a very biased site as a result of persistent and biased moderation (not the users themselves). The old headwize used to be much better; at this point, one is best to refer to diyaudio.com (no commercial conflict of interest) and also the measurements and recommendations at headphone.com (commercial, but have managed to be very objective from what I can tell; plus I tend to look at the measurements more anyway).

Ouch that sucks. Guess I won't be going by their reccomendations then. Forget that Grado SR60. Though that JVC Harx 9000 or whatever it's called I see a lot of people love and it's $30. But anyway, thanks for the heads up.

I guess it gives even more credence to my advice of simply actually trying on a pair to see if it's comfy and produces the sound you like. Too bad I can't seem to find a lot of places like that. Shame also that there is no equivalent of like an Anandtech which really reviews headsets and a

Unfortunately, high end audio stores tend to be mostly in big cities. The other downside is that you end up trying a pair of $5000 Stax Omega 3's and then you feel inadequate in anything you actually do purchase lol. PS. Grados are colored as their frequency response is anything but flat. I've heard many Grado headphones, and they all have that signature sound. Some like it, but I prefer minimized distortion. If the source audio is bad, so be it, but I sure don't want the headphones to try to compensate for

I can also recommend earbuds for portable use. Etymotic ER-4s. On the lower price point, their ER-6, which I used to have until psycho ex ran them over with the car. I compared them to some Shure and Westone stuff and the latter have more bass and more distortion...

Unless you poorly review the product of one of the site's many sponsors, and then when a critical mass of this has accrued, posts, entire threads, and/or users are "disappeared", which Jude (site owner) freely admitted in the sponsors-only forum.

You actually are in luck. I spent like a year playing around and tinkering with all sorts of configs. What I found is that there is not a lot of information or data on this. So here is what I did find, and I welcome any different perspectives because quite frankly I can't find anything else:

Ignore gaming headsets or anything with a mic integrated. They are universally terrible. I've tested the Creative $60 one (only good for bass--mids and highs are distorted and sound very fuzzy), the Cooler Master Storm Sirus (sounded weak, volume was waaaaay too low even at highest settings & then at the highest the sound gets distorted, and only good bass comes from the left ear but not both), the supposed well-reccomended Corsair one (which was absolutely pathetic--no bass and all sounds sounded flat and no vibrancy). So the solution is to get a good pair of true stereo headphones, which are cheap $40-80, and if you must have surround sound, pair it with a sound card that does 3D upmixing. I have an old an old Creative X-Fi (ExtremeMusic I think--drivers don't recognize it properly--I think I have a XtremeGamer but it will only install extrememusic). It's pretty bad that I use a $35 pair of Sennheiser earbuds and overall it sounds better than any of those $100+ headsets. Yes, with earbuds it lacks significant bass and it's clear but not crisp clear, but I bet you a good set of stereo cans with a dedi sound card will be phenomenal. Those earbuds I mentioned are pretty damn good for earbuds, and pretty cheap. 300% better than earbuds thrown in electronics. But then again you don't want earbuds and I agree with you. I freaking hate them. It's just that I havent' gotten around to trying the JVC Harx something or the Grado SR60. I can't think of their exact names, but supposedly they deliver clear at all levels and hearty bass. But then again that's what I read. And astroturfing is so prevalent.

Best advice though is go to a place where you can TRY IT ON and listen to it. Seriously. Even if something is settled on, try it on before you buy it! An uncomfy headset is the absolute worst. I couldn't bare wearing that damn Creative headset because the small tight leather cups drove me mad. And an uncomfy headset will.

Forgot to mention that I also say use a dedi sound card because it seems that USB just can't handle the load, at least for games and 3D upmixing. But apparently creative makes upmixing software for $20. Check it out. I don't know the quality, and it still may sound like shit, but it might be better than investing $180 in a Creative Titanium X-Fi or whatever it's called, when it sounds good enough with integrated audio.

Koss Porta Pro [koss.com] don't just look retro, they're the real deal. They've been mostly unchanged since 1984, and Amazon has sold them since 1990 (up to 1,200 reviews now). It's nice to see a company stand behind a product instead of cycling them every 6 months.

From an audiophile with stupidly expensive headphones, DACs, and amps to power them, and no $50 cables:

The Superlux HD668b [amazon.com] have the most impressive bang for your buck I've ever seen. At $50 ($30-40 if you look around), they easily match other cans $200-300 in quality. They are super analytical monitors—you won't get that V-shaped response that most people find pleasing. If it happens you like that type of response (many people requesting a flat response don't actually realize how accustomed they've be

For that price point ($40), the Koss Porta Pro remain the kings, as another poster pointed out. I'm saying this as someone that's auditioned everything from the shittiest do-it-yourself headphones I made to $5K electrostatic headphones.

If it's audio quality you want, grab the HD650's. But they are open-back, so no isolation whatsoever. If you want/need isolation, go for the HD280 Pros. They're comfortable enough to wear all day and have massive amounts of noise cancelling without any electronics whatsoever.

I bought a nice pair of AKG earbuds a couple years ago. AKG has a reputation for quality, and many years before I'd bought a Realistic-branded set of AKG circumaural headphones that were awesome. Alas I couldn't enjoy them any more because they caused me physical pain, from pressure and bruising of cartilage, because my ears had grown too large (ears keep growing)... or something. I'd bought several other circumaural brands, thinking I could find one that didn't hurt, but they ALL caused pain after perha

Those Koss are actually quite different: diaphragm size. The Philips ones - okay, looking for a model number finally - model SHS3200 [amazon.com] have a much smaller earbud-class diaphragm. I might find a larger "earhook" style like yours comfortable, but I'm very wary they'd hurt as much as regular cans.

I have several... many... sets of Skullcandy earbuds. Though I've experienced uncomfortable earbuds before, that isn't the case at all for me with these. The only contact with your ear is a very soft, squishy "mushroom" of silicone/rubber. I can't imagine any over-ear headphones that would be more comfortable, personally.

And, the bass and noise isolation is excellent. Their "base models" are cheap, with little discernable quality compromise from their higher-end. At the price, I'd suggest trying one--

While the Sennheiser HD 280 PROs are about double the asked for price range, I think they're worth every penny. They're good for about 30 db of noise cancellation, have an excellent and balanced response across the audio spectrum, and stellar audio reproduction. I've had mine nearly three years now, and I use them about 20 hours per week (about 3000 hours of usage so far). I still absolutely love them, and if I ever needed to replace them, I would get the same model in a heartbeat.

I went to target, 20$, it is great for playing video games with friends and chatting on Team Speak.

My previous headset was the overly hardware laden Microsoft Sidewinder from late 90s or early 2000s, and I had it to play Warcraft3 with friends. Voice chat is invaluable for RTS. Our team was the best in the world at the time 200wins 1loss(from my teammates screwing around).

The earbuds that came with the Zune HD were and still are the best padded earbuds I've ever owned. The second best were the earbuds that came with XM MyFi portable satellite radio.

Despite searching for years I have never found the OEM for these two models of earbuds. I recently found a few new/old stock Zune HD earbuds to replace my old pair and to keep me going until I find something comparable.

I don't prefer the sound isolation "ear canal" headphones because it messes with the pressure in my ears and th

I have one of these which I bought about 10 years ago. Back then I think I paid $150, but anyway, they are comfortable, do a very good job of cutting out external sound, and the frequency response is wonderful. Deep but not overpowering bass, all the way up to clear, crisp highs.

I bought them as I was the sound technician for my large church's praise band. Even worshipping in a large, acoustically horrible gym, with these headphones on it was wonderful to hear just the band (or

generally I like it when its low end is below 20Hz and its high end is above 20Khz, I have a pair of sony's that my wife bought me, maybe 20 bucks thats 18Hz and 21Hz and they still sound a bit muddy (yes I am a bit of a snob), but they are well balanced over the frequency range and for 20 dollar or so headphones are quite adequate for my snotty taste, probably sounding pretty good to your average person.

Frequency response is a graph, not a pair of numbers. The numbers tell you absolutely nothing about how flat or distorted it is, and that's critical. A good retailer of headphones such as headphone.com will have both frequency response graphs and harmonic distortion graphs, which you can use to directly compare different brands/models. Summary statistics are not useful given that the ear is highly nonlinear and masks some distortions while it is much more sensitive to others.

Whats the driver?If its your PC/Laptop. over the ear "HEADPHONES" will do.Sennhieser RS110 or similar(HD series) all have excellent quality. Truly amazing.

However, if its your tiny mp3 player, in ear is the only way to goI use a Soundmagic PL-21 which cost 20$, and are excellent. With your budget, you can get sennhieser or Klipsch image S4 etc.,Again, I have listened, and they sound better than the soundmagic.

That said, my budget was $25(for creative nano), and PL-21 came out to be the best

In general, I've never really found that expensive headphones are worth it due to their tendency to break. Myself I'm using a cheap pair of Phillips in-ear headphones, I don't think they cost more than $15, fit pretty comfortable for long terms and have decent enough sound quality, at least for me. Of course, I'm not much of an audiophile and mostly use my headphones for listening to music in bed, throwing them in my pocket and using them with my laptop/phone while in a car (passenger of course), listening

I used and abused a pair of Sennheiser HD-580 for seven or eight years before I upgraded to electrostatics and they were $250 when new. They were certainly more sturdy than most of the previous sub-$100 headphones I had.

Get Ety HF series that work with phone OS you use. I bought a set of the HF2's for my Droid and love them. They're crisp and clear, without the artificial overpowering bass that most earbuds on the market have. The sound seperation is excellent as well. I have a set of Audio Technica NC cans, which are nice headphones, but I highly prefer the sound of the Ety's over those.

On top of that, the sound isolation is excellent and I find them to be some of the most comfortable in canal phones I've used. Plus, for and additional $100.00 you can get fitted for custom buds that are molded for your ear canal.

The HF are OK, but their original quality earbuds, the ER-4s, remain their best product with the lowest distortion. I think Etymotic just wanted to add new products for the sake of adding new products while riding the expanding mobile audio bandwagon.

These are the ones I bought a while back because I heard good things about the company itself (and my hearing is so shot, I don't think a pair of $500 headphones will do me much good.) Someone also gave me some Skullcandy G.I. over the ear headphones (they look horrid, but they are comfortable and sound great, with the "one cord", it doesn't tangle quite as much...

Ear buds never stay in my ears. These are hooks, so they stay put. They stay comfortable in my ears even after extended listening. They isolate noise well, and they have a great sound. For the price, they can't be beat!

Being a DJ and a gear head, I've spent lots of time and thought on what to buy and I've made quite a few trials. In my experience you need to look at exactly what you are going to be doing with the headphones (or speakers for that matter). If you are going to be doing recording, you want to get a very good set, and by very good, I mean very unforgiving. They need to reproduce the sound as accurately as possible. The problem with these is that they are too good to listen to most MP3 recordings. They are so good that they expose lower quality recordings to the point that they sound bad. Those same MP3s will sound much better on cheaper, more forgiving speakers and headphones. Since you mentioned $50 as your budget, you won't have a problem.

I know this will sound petty, but I'd rip my intestines out with a fork before buying something branded with Sony, given their recent history of putting out crap hardware, screwing customers over, distributing malware, suing music fans, losing online customer's data, etc.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. "But that wasn't their headphone division!" Still, I don't want that company seeing one red cent of mine. Sorry headphone division of Sony, but your parent company is scummy, so you have to pay the price of their shenanigans. I'm hopeful that there are plenty of alternatives for 20 bones that are just as good or better.

To anyone reading this, please remember all the times you've read an article here about Sony and though, "Wow, that's bad." Please don't fall into the "But their [whatever] is pretty good, so I'll make an exception and buy it." It's putting money in their pocket that they use to keep screwing people over so that we can see even more articles here about their spectacular douchebaggery.

Sony is a large company and they put out many things. If you have a beef against them for whatever reason then more power to you. However the question was posed about sub $50 dollar head phones and I happen to have picked up a pair of Sony's for a road trip and I was very impressed with the quality, fit and portability.
If your still upset about the rootkit and the removal of PS3 Linux that's fine. That doesn't apply to me however and I'm just giving advice and the OP can use it or lose as he or she chooses.

Part of the method used to protest bad corporate behaviour is to boycott them. The other part is to spread the word. Only being boycotted by the people you've screwed over probably wouldn't even do much damage to Sony, (although it would be much more than most)

To stay on-topic, my favourites headphones are these JVCs [amazon.com] at about $50, They have a cheaper pair for about half the price (HX-33s?) that are almost as good. They isolate noise enough tthat I wear them while woodworking or mowing the lawn. Great sound, and I can wear them comfortably all day. You can actually get them on sale for about half the price listed on occasion. They seem quite sturdy, but I'm not that rough on headphones despite wearing them so much.

There's a trick to putting them in, and I prefer the marshmallow adapters rather than the rubber ones (they come with a selection of types and sizes). I find that if you pull your earlobe out and forward while seating the earbud it seals nicely and stays in place. You get they hang of it quite quickly.

Just out of curiosity, is there a large (Fortune 500) manufacturer of consumer products that you think DESERVES your business and that of others here?

The point is that lots of people have a beef with practically every consumer-facing company, on the basis of product quality, or service, or policies regarding IP or customer privacy, or how and where they manufacture their goods, or the personality and character of the CEO, etc.

At the risk of sounding AOL-ish, I'll throw in a "me too!" (Heck, I quit buying Sony when they were merely annoyingly proprietary -- when they insisted on putting MemorySticks in everything -- before they started being actively malicious to their customers.)

Besides, even if all you care about is getting a good product, there's probably still one by another brand that's at least equally good, so why not pick that one instead?

How about picking one that is not extremely well known for fucking over consumers, sticking their noses where it does not belong (my home), and sponsoring (read purchasing) legislation that fundamentally violates our rights to Freedom, Privacy, and Anonymity just because they are loathsome greedy pieces of shit?

Last I heard.. Denon, Coby, Bose, Urbanwear, etc. did not have any financial interests in copyright specific IP law, content creation, and content distribution.

I understand your point that all companies might be objectionable in some ways, but some companies are clearly and flagrantly, objectionable in so many, many, ways.

Just to chime in here years ago I bought some Sony ear buds. I had to RMA one pair because the cord self destructed. The replacement was an upgraded model that also self destructed, but this time after the warranty expired.

To be fair I had the same problem with Shure headphones. The rubber couldn't handle the oil from my skin and would eventually crack. But at least the Shures had a 2 year warranty rather than the 1 month BS the Sonys had. I guess it's not as big of a problem if you're not using ear bu

I very much agree with you. The entire *reason* that those companies have so many divisions is that they want goodwill you feel towards one of their products (say, the Discman of old) to transfer over to other lines of products (say, their headphones).

However, what this means is that when one division (or, in this case, several) radically screw the pooch, a lot of people associate the negative experience with the company as a whole. Ergo, due to the CD / DRM issue almost a decade ago, I won't buy a Playstation, a VAIO, or a $20 pair of headphones that say Sony on them.

A million times no! When I got frustrated with the headphones that came with my phone because the buds kept falling out, I replaced them with some earbuds from Sony. The sound quality would basically qualify as what I call Brittney Spears quality. In other words, they have no bass, the treble is hissy, the sound is static-ey and unclear. To me, the represent another low-quality piece of crap from Sony made with the slogan 'rush it out and try to make as much money as possible.' No quality, no value, nothing. I can't imagine a $5 pair sounding worse. I knew it was a mistake to buy from Sony, but I gave them just one more chance. Not doing it again.

Personally, I got a Sennheiser HD 202 for $20 and they're quite simply the best value you can possibly get for headphones. For the price, the sound is impressively rich, clear and well-rounded.

I would disagree. You can easily find some nice phones for reasonable price. The Grados were always highly rated (and considered under-priced) with the 60s available for just around the $50 price limit (over $50 but not by much)

And, if you want an enclosed set, the Monoprice 8323 are hard to beat and would beat most other enclosed phones in the under $200 price range and they are under $25.

However, if you really want the best, yes, they cost - but "decent" is available, just not from consumer brands

... except Grados all commonly have the mid-range boosted, with only some noticeable bass (not the reproduction of it, but rather impact of the bass), and weird treble characteristics. It's highly coloured, and it's not detailed. Bowl models, depending on your ears, are still superaural rather than more comfortable circumaural. It's good for rocking out without being fatigued for long wearing due to its light weight and easy potential for modding, but it's no replacement for a good home speaker setup.

No really, you don't have to have golden ears to hear the difference. Either take the time to burn tracks from CDs into a totally loss-less format like FLAC or do what I do and screw digital music for now, it's not ready for prime time- buy used CDs they're literally sonically perfect, (even too perfect for some vinyl lovers).

I've heard essentially every Grado headphone that has been available at headphone.com over the years. And they are all--without exception--colored. They are for people that like that particular sound. For an all-around great headphone at mid-price level, Sennheisers can't be beat. The HD-580 were my mainstay for years, until I recently went all in and got Stax Omega 3s.

This is an old debate between digital and analog. The truth is, digital bits being put together are beyond the ability of the human ear to discern. What people like about analog, it's warmth, is a reaction to the imperfections that analog introduces, even though, yes, it's a continuous waveform and therefore potentially "more perfect:" than digital.

It's an old old argument form , like the 80s and I am not going to go carry it forward beyond explaining the basics of it to people who have never heard it w

Are you on drugs? Audio frequency EM waves have zero biological effect. Zero. Not to mention the power lines in your house emit a shitload more of audio frequency (60 Hz) EM waves due to the far larger current that runs through them vs headphone coils and more than makes up for the increased distance between you and a wall.